


Dust to Dust

by imma_redshirt



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Murder, Pre-Movie, burial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 03:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21292928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imma_redshirt/pseuds/imma_redshirt
Summary: The color of Héctor's suit reminds Ernesto of something from their youth.
Relationships: Héctor Rivera/Imelda Rivera
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	Dust to Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Quick writing exercise of Ernesto's POV as he buries Héctor. So it's kind of morbid. 
> 
> ALSO I was inspired to write this after becoming frustrated with my own fanart but being interested in the color I used for Héctor's charro suit, and then right after writing this I went back to the movie to check on the suit's color and realized I'd gotten it wrong. So like, I dunno if that counts as canon divergence? Maybe? Like a very minor divergence for the sake of this fic and my own frustration?

When they were children, there had been a spot on the river’s edge where Ernesto and Héctor could always find clay. They never did much with it. It was just nice to dig their fingers into, cold and just soft enough to clench in their fists around. Sometimes they threw it at each other, but that never lasted long because shirts stained with bits of clay often drew the wrath of the Sisters who watched over them. 

It had been an earthy color, Ernesto remembered. A sort of pale reddish-brown. Sometimes more red than brown and sometimes pink in the right light. If you grabbed a chunk of it you could slide your fingers around in it and make little designs, or smear it on the sleeve of your friend’s shirt if you wanted to laugh and watch him frantically wash it off with a splash of water. 

If you let it coat your fingers and palms for too long, it dried out and cracked along the all the little lines and bumps in your skin. It became dust. Because it came from the Earth. If you clenched your hand hard enough, the dried clay crumbled and fell to your feet.

Héctor’s charro suit reminded Ernesto of that clay. The color of the material wasn’t far off, he thought. Maybe it was a little bit more pale still, a softer shade than the clay on the river bank. But when Héctor was in shadow it was closer to that color from their youth. Pale. Reddish-brown. Earthy and familiar.

Ernesto’s own suit was too red, too rich of a shade to resemble the clay. It was closer to a dark wine, he thought. The same wine the priests handed out during Mass, dark against the chalice, and bitter on the tongue. He and Héctor had agreed on wearing red during their performances because they also agreed they both looked very handsome in red, though neither had agreed on who was the _most_ handsome, and neither had been able to agree on which shade to wear. In the end, Héctor had chosen a shade that Imelda was fond of, and Ernesto had chosen a shade farthest from that one.

After that, Ernesto had not given much thought to the color of Héctor’s suit other than the thought that it was Imelda’s doing. 

Until years later, years after he and Héctor gave up playing children’s games by the river, when Ernesto rolled his friend’s body into the shallow grave he’d dug, and one of the first thoughts that came to mind was the color of that clay. Not, _I’ve murdered my brother,_ or _What have I done_. Just, _It’s the same color as that clay, isn’t it?_

_Oh, yes,_ he thought back to himself after a moment of staring into the darkness just beyond the tips of his shoes, and because there was no one alive nearby to share his observation with. _It is!_

Sweat rolled down the back of his neck. His hands shook. But his breath was steady and he worked quickly and efficiently as he began to shovel dirt into the grave. 

Clouds moved across the moon overhead and shadows played across the material that stretched across Héctor’s shoulders. Ernesto’s friend was turned away from him, face pressed down against the cool earth, one arm tucked awkwardly beneath his neck. It was almost as if he was asleep, Ernesto thought, if men could sleep in oblong holes in the ground. He’d often sleep with his face pressed into his pillow and his long limbs splayed this way and that. Ernesto was never sure how he was able to breathe, but the pillow at least muffled his snoring, which Ernesto was grateful for.

A shovel-full of dirt fell across the curve of Héctor’s back and Ernesto thought of standing at the river’s edge, water lapping at his bare feet, and looking for the stark contrast of the reddish clay that mingled with the soil and sand. 

He thought of Héctor sprinting past him right into the water, laughing, calling his name and splashing cold water into his face.

With that image in his mind and the knowledge that Héctor would never run laughing into any rivers ever again, Ernesto thought _I’ve killed him,_ but immediately swept the words from his mind. Yes, of course he’d killed him. He’d planned to kill him. Héctor had pushed and pushed and Ernesto had done what needed to be done. If Héctor was only going to think of himself then certainly Ernesto had to do the same. He’d only been smarter about it.

Besides, whenever Ernesto thought too much of the act itself, he became dizzy with anxiety and worry and some heavy, constricting feeling in his chest that made him want to scream or cry or grab Héctor’s shoulders and shake him till he opened his eyes. Which, really, he couldn’t afford to feel at the moment. Dawn was near and soon people would be walking about. What was he going to do when someone caught him standing over a half-filled grave, shoveling dirt over a dead mariachi?

_Well, I will just tell them I found him that way,_ Ernesto thought to himself with a chuckle. It wasn’t funny, but all he could do was laugh. 

He continued to throw dirt over Héctor’s silent form.

The wind blew and the sweat on his neck grew cold. The grave filled until Ernesto could no longer see the pale reddish-brown of his friend’s clothing. Only dirt, and grass, and torn roots. 

He left the shovel somewhere beneath thorny bushes. Dusted his hands on the handkerchief he’d taken from Héctor’s pocket and tossed the dirt-stained cloth to the ground. Tried not to think of laughing at his friend’s dirt-stained shirt that would get him into trouble with the Sisters who had gotten after them so often. 

His heart raced and his thoughts were muddled. But strangely, now, his hands were steady. Aching from gripping the shovel, but steady.

Hours later, sitting on the train with his friend’s guitar case across his lap, Ernesto stared at the welts that had risen on his palms. They stung, and carrying the guitar and his suitcase from the hotel to the train station had been torture. 

Well deserved torture, he supposed. Though he didn’t mind a little suffering in the wake of what he’d done. It had been a necessary task in the path to success, but it had also been a terrible and tiring one. 

It had been terrible, but it hadn’t been entirely his fault. If Héctor had only listened to him, he’d be on the same train, Ernesto thought. Alive. Breathing. Sitting above the Earth instead of confined within it.

He’d been the victim of his own stupidity. Instead of chattering on and on about everything and nothing and writing in his song book like he’d always done, he was curled under the dirt where his suit would dissolve and become part of the soil like all dead and buried things. He’d wanted to go home and look what had happened.

At least Ernesto hadn’t left Héctor out in the open. He’d cared enough to dig a grave for him. Unmarked, but still somewhere for a body to rest, enveloped by the earth. Just as the clay’s dust had crumbled from Ernesto’s hands to rest with the soil at his feet. 

And, Ernesto further reasoned for the thousandth time that morning, he’d keep Héctor’s memory alive. Just because Héctor had been buried, it didn’t mean that his writing had to be buried, too. Héctor may not have wanted to help his friend any longer but he had anyway, and Ernesto was retuning the favor in his own fashion. What was done was done, and they both had to settle for it.

With that, Ernesto’s eyes began to burn and a yawn stretched his jaw. He clenched his fists, felt the sting of the painful welts across his palms, crossed his arms, and refused to think about Héctor and his suit anymore, because the longer he thought about it, the longer he was kept from sleeping.

He leaned back against his seat and stared down at his fists. Sunlight streamed in through the train windows and played across the dark red of his sleeves. Something about the color gave him a sinking feeling and he decided, after his eyes finally drifted shut, that he wouldn’t wear red again for a while. It wasn’t as pleasant a color as he’d once thought, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
